It’s Small Business Saturday on, er, Saturday. We’ve had Black Friday and Cyber Monday so why not collect the set?

This one’s a bit different: it is, according to their website, “a grassroots, non-commercial campaign”. Well, yeees… it was set up by American Express. So it’s still all about buying stuff.

Whatever the case, I can’t argue with the “shop local” message. After all, if you’re going to buy stuff it’s nicer to buy it from small businesses and keep people like me afloat.

But it’s made me think about what being a small business is. I’d rather call myself self-employed than an entrepreneur, but I think I’m in a minority. Being an entrepreneur is just so fashionable these days. Continue reading →

Just because I have a blog called Crimes against English doesn’t mean I’m a pedant. In fact – if we’re discussing the English language – pedants are my least favourite people after retailers and marketing copywriters. But everyone has their breaking point and I think I’ve found mine.

Earlier this year, I did one of those ‘how good are you at English?’ quizzes. It involved identifying parts of speech. It’s a long time since my grammar lessons at grammar school, so I had to think about it. And I wondered: does knowing what adjectives and nouns are called actually matter?

Well, maybe it does. Because if people knew the difference between adjectives and nouns, you wouldn’t get this.